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GOD |
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| (actually, the human concept thereof) | ||
(The Study of Threes)
http://threesology.org
In the English language, that which is described as a supernatural being designated with 3-letters G -O- D, has been variously described in three ways as:
Omniscient (all knowing)
Omnipotent (all powerful)
Omnipresent (all over...present everywhere)
But most people do not appreciate what they are actually describing when they label the God concept as being, simplistically put, a reference to a beginning and an end; such that this conceptualized being came first (or always existed), and will be here (existing) last... though everything else may perish.
To me, the human concept of (a) "supreme being" called God is wholly different than that which may or may not exist. The present conceptualization of (a) God represents little more than a cognitive limit having been reached. Whereas in a simplified (primitive) culture that lacks what we might describe as sophistication of thought and action when compared to a person's intellectual and daily life routine in a modern setting, it is a little easier to apprehend an appreciation of an expressed form of cognitive limitation. I'm not talking about knowledge, I am describing a functionality of brain activity.
As has been frequently recorded by those historians interested in the development of words being used to describe number concepts in terms of quantity, it has been found that there is a recurrence of a "one - two - many" formula. Primitive peoples, in their own language equivalent ways, have three number values. Like young children learning to distinguish a word associated with a numerical value, primitive peoples use three words to count with. The word "many" is used to describe everything beyond a singularity (one) and a duality (two). However, it must be pointed out that the "one" and "two" concepts were previously expressed cognitive limits, as well as differential limitations with respect to numbers beyond the third placement.
While the existence of cognitive limitations can be recognized and accepted as a reality with respect to such a presence in the lives of those living in a primitive setting; people in social settings routinely described as modern, do not distinguish the presence of a cognitive limitation unless it is described in terms of a lack of knowledge or a lack of some ability to perform a particular intellectual task such as playing chess, shooting billiards, writing a computer language, etc... Additionally they don't consider that someone with an exceptional ability to perform some task is a compensation for the lack of an ability to do another. But such considerations if not already assumed as a given, can lead too many readers astray and miss the simply point that a person's cognitive limitation can express itself quite openly, but can be disguised by various words and mentally applied garments like an actor changing clothes to participate in different scenes.
Most people hold a very "youthful" belief (or disbelief) in such topics as god, religion, and morality an observational assessment one might assume based on a statistical probability garnered by listening to various conversations and reading various pieces of literature. While using the phrase "most people" is clearly quite subjective and can be dangerously applied to an extent it purports to a writer's fallibility of judgement, its usage must be accompanied with an explanatory definition thereof. This "youthfulness" is an indication of a primitive mindset expressed in an inability to distinguish between beliefs in (a) god, religion and morality. "Most people" tend to lump these three items together, though they are separate issues. As a syllogism using the labels of Major Premise, Minor Premise and Conclusion, some readers might associate God with the Conclusion, Religion as a Major Premise, and Morality with a Minor Premise... though not necessarily in the same syllogistic sentence.
Those who are fusing these three topics in one ensemble, are creating a formulaic:
This can be aligned with the previously stated notion of God being the "Many" proportion in the arrangement of:
For those readers who missed what was pointed out, the "Many" is the third item in a sequence of three. Both of these are representations of cognitive limits having been reached, and may well remain with humanity for some time. There is far too much "youthful" emotional attachment to the usage of such believed in topics as (a) God, Religion, and Morality.
For example, an acquaintance lent me a book he had begun to read, that he interrupted the reading thereof to begin another book about the Irish Potato famine. And so I began reading a book entitled "The Belief Instinct" by Jesse Bering. While the title suggested the possibility of an erudite dissertation on the concepts of belief and instinct amalgamated into a comprehensive explication of a human behavioral characteristic, I was disappointed to discover it was just another collection of inter-mixed perceptions trying to formulate a compass reading when no reliable star could be seen to steer by. In other words, it was like reading an adolescent's diary. Those who provided praise for the book as depicted on the back slip-cover, were either paid, back-scratching writers, or are just as lost in a similar made-up world where right and wrong are determined by a "safety-in-numbers" huddling together around a fire-pit maneuver.
Reading the book was like viewing a script for a soap-opera-ed documentary. The book clearly is directed towards a reader-ship that is particularly naive in thinking psychologically, sociologically, and psychoanalytically in the same context about the same topic. Many of the items used for comparison are superficial representations of behavior that are not applied to a larger contextual framework... mainly because it is being falsely presumed by the author to be an underlying representation of a "belief instinct", described in simplistic religious terms like an adolescent trying to come to grips with issues rammed down their throat due to the repetition of such in a given culture.
The book provides a veneer of scientific findings in an attempt to suggest a greater credibility should be placed on his purported perspective of a "belief instinct", without even suggesting a personal understanding of belief and instinct as separate issues being mixed together with an intent to create a home-spun form of mud and straw brick-work with which to begin building an adobe hut within which can be held initiatory rites-of-passage for those who believe that his views help to confirm their views about one or another subjects. In concluding this short digression: What a distinctly superficial account of what many people have glossed over in various conversations... Some of whom chuckled at such a notion similar to an old attempt made by would-be religious philosophers ages ago who attempted to personify the concept of the soul though they never used the title "soul instinct". When time avails me, by way of a non-religious affectation, I will write of the same presumed "belief instinct", though such a rubric in the hands of some, turns out to reek of a meandering regression to an age of superstition.
Usage of the word "instinct" for what we describe as a recurring behavior may occlude the recognition that words are symbolic characterizations which cam be attached with different types and levels of emotion. What one can describe as an instinct can also be described as a product of operant conditioning suffused into the genetic structure of a given species. Such a characteristic is far different from a belief engrained into a person's psyche due to a social milieu. Nonetheless, we should not be so quick to judge a frequent recurrence as an instinct, otherwise we can mislabel or overlook some behaviors we might otherwise describe as an instinct.
For example, all life forms eat in one way or another, but we don't necessarily describe the activity as an instinct, though we could. And we don't say intoxication or inebriation are instincts, though such behavior has occurred for centuries. We might also include such topics as dreaming, sex without an intent to procreate, reading "signs in nature" or symbols on written materials, etc... And we can't be certain that the behavior of counting is instinctual, even though we can suggest that other animals exhibit what we humans describe as counting behavior. Hence, I will not try to suggest the effort put forward to count is instinctual, much less advance mathematics or activities such as chemistry, woodworking, mechanical drafting, etc. found in other subject areas are instincts. Nonetheless, such activities can be used to describe basic brain activity.
The trouble with identifying an occurrence of cognitive limitation in one subject area such as counting, is often not used to make parallels with other forms of brain activity circumscribed by the usage of words or other symbols. It is an arrogance. And yet this too might well be suggested as an instinct because of its prolonged expressiveness over the centuries. But... this may than further suggest that there are different forms of instinct in terms of origination, and not overt expression. For example, some instincts might be cultural, others species-specific, and still others mutations reinforced by a given situation being repeated for a particular individual that is not acquired by one or more other family members even though they share the same environment, much— but not most of the time.
While we are looking at the "One - Two - Many" counting sequences of primitive peoples as expressive of cognitive limits, are we also describing an instinct to gain, then stop at, and then, assumedly, progress beyond a cognitive limit? But if we do not recognize the usage of a cognitive limit because we apply too much emotional emphasis to the usage thereof, how then might we progress beyond it? Are some people "programmed" with an instinct to express a cognitive limit but conceal it so as to camouflage themselves from predators... those who might seek to dominate, if not exterminate them if they showed a weakness? Is the word "GOD" being used to camouflage a "weakness" of intellectual behavior that might otherwise be viewed as an inferior quality like a sick or lame animal that is left behind or killed by those in their clan?
While it is easy to see that religion has been used as a means of deferring the predation of others, it is unaccustomed for most to think in the same way about the word "GOD", even though such may be the case, and I am positing such a point of view. Let me reiterate the point that the concept of "God" is the expression of an underlying cognitive limit. And in order to go beyond this conceptual limit, we must recognize it as a limitation in thinking. But this is not meant to be construed as an advocation of an atheist point of view as if it were a superior perspective since there might well be or have been a creator of the universe. This is meant to invoke a reconsideration of the concept that is presently being expressed as an all inclusive "Many" encapsulation, but may in fact represent a limitation.
For example, in terms of enumeration, metaphorically speaking, a primitive's all encompassing God is represented in the "Trinity" of one - two - many. It is the primitives "Father - Son - Holy Spirit" with respect to counting. In contrast, while we in a modern setting obviously enumerate far in advance of three number words, our enumeration gives evidence of the same cognitive limiting exercize in the manner we divide larger numbers into groupings. For example, we express a similar three-patterned cognitive grouping when we place a comma after the ones - tens - thousands. And we repeat this same grouping limitation no matter how high we count. Hence, no matter how far we may take our counting in terms of that which we apply to the concept of God, we are still expressing a cognitive limit.
But we could also associate the idea of American clothing sizes (small - medium - large) as another representative "Trinity" model describing a cognitive limitation in that there are no original (uniquely individualized) terms used to describe larger sizes of clothes. We repeat ourselves by using X- large, XX- large, XXX- large, including the usage of a 1, 2, 3 quantity of X's. In other words, our minds remain quite primitive. But, is it a primivity of instinct, Earth-environment adaptation, cultural imposition, a genetic endowment, or simply a case suggesting a new breed of human with a different kind of brain is needed to progress further? Is the present concept of (a) God the supreme expression thereof, or are we short-changing God because we are afraid to think outside our familial, social, or species box?
Examples of the same cognitive limit being described in different ways:
Ones, Tens, Hundreds... cognitive limit represented with a comma before another pattern-of-three is expressed...
North, South, East, 'and' West... the "and" is akin to the comma in a three-part cognitive limit of counting.
Small, Medium, Large... cognitive limit reached, followed by another pattern- of-three: X- Large, XX- large, XXX- large... cognitive limit reached.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit... cognitive limit reached followed by a 3 -in- 1 formula.
Length, Width, Breadth... cognitive limit of dimensions reach, followed by a "time" concept and "multi-dimension" perspective representing a usage of "Plurality".
Period, Question mark, Exclamation point... cognitive limit reached.
One, Two, Many... cognitive limit reached.
Red, Yellow, Green (street lights)... cognitive limit reached.
Bachelor's, Master's, Ph.D... cognitive limit reached by this typically acquired 3 -in- 1 academic route.
ETC... cognitive limit reached at the moment.
What I'm describing is not a mere inability to use words with which to attempt some illustration of (a) God, or the lack of a sufficient vocabulary, in other words, not a language deficit, but a cognitive deficit that may not be an instinct to repeat or mimic one another, but might well be forced upon most because of an overall cognitive restraint being imposed by way of reciting religious ideas that were born in an age when there was truly a wide-spread cognitive limitation that went hand in hand with not only illiteracy, but a brain functioning steeped in a cycle of superstition that did not become abandoned with greater understanding, but simply changed its coloring?
What if you were told that your God doesn't exist because your God is an inferior God... just as were those who were told that their gods were inferior to the ONE true God. And yet, the concept of a ONE true God became a plurality in the form of a Trinitarian concept. Those who once worshipped a plurality of gods were said to be paying homage to false gods and that there was only ONE true God... yet the concept of a singularity reversed itself and became a plurality. Talk about a hypocrisy! But it may not actually be an hypocrisy, but an expression of an underlying cognitive structure using a pattern-of-three model. It is a model which time and again presents itself to be a gathering of three separate entities viewed as a singularity... the very thing exhibited by the Sun with its three "moments" called dawn - noon - dusk.
Yet, even when people of today are discussing their concept of (a) God, their discussion itself is a limitation since such discussions rarely take into account other subject areas except in a manner to validate one's God concept. Information from other subject areas are not used as personal thrusts of challenge to one's contrive logic, they are variously used, in a piece-meal fashion, to portray high walls, a moat, a drawbridge and other means of fortifying oneself in a particular religious citadel... which typically includes socializing amongst those whom share the same perspective.
The concept of (a) God, belief and even the concept of instinct, may be partial or whole forms of adaptive reflexes and would, given other stimuli, be expressed in different ways... but not necessarily as a concept of (a) God, belief or instinct. These three then, might well be a representation of yet another cognitive limit that I have become aware of as existing, but have not as yet gone fully beyond.
Initial Posting Date: Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Herb O. Buckland
herbobuckland@hotmail.com